Of what shall a man be proud, if he is not proud of his friends?

I am not afraid of the truth, if any one could tell it me, but I am afraid of parts of it impertinently uttered.

The seeming significance of nature's appearances, their unchanging strangeness to the senses, and the thrilling response which they awaken in the mind of man . . . If we could only write near enough to the facts, and yet with no pedestrian calm, but ardently, we might transfer the glamour of reality direct upon our pages.

It was Silver's voice, and before I had heard a dozen words, I would not have shown myself for all the world. I lay there, trembling and listening, in the extreme of fear and curiostiy, for, in those dozen words, I understood that the lives of all the honest men aboard depended on me alone.

Let any man speak long enough, he will get believers.

It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it.

After all, the commonplaces are the great poetic truths.